The world’s first space tourist wants to leave the orbit of planet Earth again, only this time he intends to go around the Moon aboard an Elon Musk spaceship.
For Dennis Tito, from 30 years old, it’s a chance to relive the joy of your trip to the International Space Station, now that you’ve retired with time on your hands. You are not interested in getting on a flight from 10 minutes to the edge of the space or repeat what you did does 21 years.
Although his new trip to the Moon, lasting one week (with a date to be determined), will take him to 100 miles from the other side of the satellite. Now, he will have company: his wife, Akiko, and others 10 people willing to pay a lot of money for the trip.
Tito does not say how much he will pay, but his flight to the Russian station cost 20 millions of dollars.
The couple acknowledges that there is still much testing and development ahead for Starship, a shiny, bullet-shaped giant that has not yet attempted to reach space.
“We have We have to stay healthy for all the years it will take for SpaceX to complete this vehicle,” Tito said in an interview this week with the Associated Press.
“I could be sitting in a rocking chair, without getting any good exercise, if it weren’t for this mission”, he added humorously.
Tito is actually the second billionaire to make a Starship reservation for a flight around the Moon. Japanese fashion tycoon Yusaku Maezawa announced in 2018 that he would buy a full flight to be able to take eight or more people with you, preferably artists. The two men flew to the space station from Kazakhstan on Russian rockets, with 20 years apart.
Tito started space tourism in 2001, becoming the first person to pay for his trip to space and antagonizing NASA in the process . The US space agency didn’t want a tourist hanging around while the station was being built.
But the Russian Space Agency needed the cash and, with the help of US-based Space Adventures, launched a string of wealthy clients to the station over the decade of 2000 and, just a year ago, to Maezawa.